Sunday, December 18, 2016

One woman in the foreground of the market (third from left) resembles my grandmother’s mother.

Many families all over the world can narrate accounts of their
relatives who went missing in the Holocaust—to a point. Some narrators, like my
maternal grandmother, would have to stop at a certain juncture, and with a
shrug, with empty palms balancing even weights, painfully state, “We never
heard from them again.” That phrase of resignation, which I encountered dozens
of times from youth through adulthood, referred to my grandmother’s mother,
Meresse Offen, and my grandmother’s young brother, David Offen, trapped in
their native village, Mielec, after the German army invaded Poland. The 1939
Nazi incursion would be “the point” beyond which the narration could not
continue with certainty, and the speaker would be left to repackage the grief,
storing the information of the loss temporarily, until the impetus for
reiteration would recall the names—Meresse and David—to the lips, to be restored
by the elegiac necessities of speech.

Speculation on the plights of our relatives abounded. Some family
members contended that Meresse had been shot to death after digging her own
grave. They averred that David had been sent to work (and die) in a nearby
Polish aircraft factory, one that the Nazis had repurposed to produce German warplanes.
Two family members traveled (separately) to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, where they
offered conflicting testimony, one declaring the veracity of these events
(shooting, aircraft factory) while the other placed question marks on the part
of the form reserved for cause of death. My mother references a blurry event
from her childhood, when a former neighbor from Mielec was said to have visited
her household in New York, conveying information about how Meresse and David
perished. I grew interested in the story, and in researching it, hoped to
unearth evidence that might help us shift “the point” of knowledge toward a
place of greater detail.

To some extent, this voyage becomes a tale of “Internet
triumph.” Email communication with a Jewish Records Indexing researcher led me
to the 1941 Nazi census of Mielec, one that listed “Meresa Offen” and “Dawid
Offen” as living at “3-go Maya”, the purported site of a family lumber
business. Other web sites (including that of the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum) contained testimonies or oral histories that established the
brutality of the Nazi regime when it first occupied the small town in 1939:
burning many Jews inside a ritual bath, to cite one example. Knowing, however,
that my relatives had survived until the census, I sought details on how they might
have fared under occupation. Many of the oral histories suggested that each
household supplied a worker for the occupiers, but otherwise, many of those
living in Mielec struggled beneath the twin burdens of poverty and travel
restriction: few strayed far from home.

A German soldier snapped the market photo and inscribed the back: October 2, 1940, Market in Milec.

Most of my grandmother’s family had emigrated to the United States in the years leading up to the outbreak of World War II in Europe, but her parents and a younger sibling remained in the Old Country. The family, as a unit, had traveled to Vienna between World Wars, owing to political and military instability in Poland. After Germany annexed Austria as part of the Anschluss, Meresse Offen and her youngest son, David, returned to Mielec, hoping to resuscitate the family lumber business. The invasion of Poland separated husband and wife, father and son. Markus Offen, the aged patriarch, would flee Europe on one of the final passenger missions of the Italian vessel, the S.S. Rex, departing Genoa for New York City in early 1940. Official records describe him as suffering from senility, but he wasn’t senile, he was extremely distraught over having to choose between an unlikely reunion with his wife and son—and self-preservation.

A few months after weary, depressed Markus Offen reached his
children in New York, a German soldier garrisoned in Mielec snapped several
photographs of the village, carefully inscribing each with date and setting. Perhaps
he meant to document his travels as a soldier, but he indirectly created a portrait
of Jewish life that would later be discovered by a Canadian soldier after the
German had been killed in battle. The Canadian soldier returned home with these
(and other) photographs, eventually bequeathing them to his nephew, who, as
part of the “Internet triumph”, posted them online as a photoset. Since the Wehrmacht
soldier had inscribed many of his photographs “Milec”, the German spelling of
Mielec, a Google search for “Milec” would reveal these wonders. I conducted
such a search. Up came the photoset, which, by itself, would have been a find,
but one of the photographs in particular would draw my family’s attention.

(L) Meresse Offen in
later life. (R) Meresse and David Offen, hale and hearty, in earlier days.

The soldier’s market photograph features three women in the
foreground, including one who stares downward, unwilling to glance at the
camera. Her image compares favorably—eerily—to a family photograph of Meresse
Offen, the print presumably carried to the States by her husband, Markus,
having fled from persecution aboard the S.S. Rex. The wig style, the jaw-line, the
frown: it might be our lost relative, my great grandmother. We can’t say for
sure, of course, but the Nazi census doesn’t list many women in their sixties,
and even if it isn’t her, it might as well be her, for the woman in the soldier’s
snapshot as well as my great grandmother (were they not the same person) probably
lived the same desolate, anguished lives under occupation. Subsequent scholarship
by Rochelle Saidel, in her book Mielec,
Poland: The Shtetl That Became a Nazi Concentration Camp, would authoritatively
describe the end of Mielec’s Jewish population.

Even before Saidel wrote her book, it wasn’t a secret that
Mielec’s Jews were deported on March 9, 1942, a bitterly cold, snowy day. But
Saidel’s book probably helps us adjust “the point” where facts trail off, and speculation
begins. Had the elderly Meresse Offen, useless by Nazi standards, lived to the
day of the deportation, she was almost certainly shot to death, or if not shot
to death, then transported to the Lublin District, before being rerouted to a
death camp. (In all likelihood, she did not dig her own grave.) Had her son,
David, survived until the brutally cold day in March, 1942, then he might’ve
been sent to the labor camp—the airplane factory—outside Mielec, or if he wasn’t
selected for slave labor, then he might’ve been transported to the Lublin
District, before further transport, in all likelihood, to a death camp. Just as
we can’t say whether the woman in the soldier’s photograph is my great
grandmother, we can’t say exactly
what happened to these two humble relatives. Still, we can shift “the point” of
understanding a little bit further into the clarified light.

David Offen was a handsome fellow who perished in the
Holocaust. (Worked to death, typhoid sickness, gas chamber, executed by soldier,
asphyxiated in cattle car?) I wonder if he was ever “whistled out” (ordered
around) as were the Jews in Paul Celan’s
famous poem, “Todesfuge.” David had ten siblings, one of whom, Anna, became
my grandmother. She famously toiled as a maternity ward nurse in New York,
sending the vast majority of her earnings to Europe, in order to assist members
of her family and her husband, Emil Ringel, to emigrate. While the Offen family did experience large-city life
in Vienna, I’ve got to imagine that New York bedazzled them: the lights, vivacity,
melting pot, mechanization, jazz. It was the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie who
declared “no him, no me,” when referring to another trumpeter, Louis Armstrong, and the same is true
on my end, when thinking of my grandmother: no her, no me. I’m lucky to be
alive.

poultrygeist: A
haunted chicken. A cage-free, pasture-raised, foraging, haunted chicken that lays
deviled eggs. Eating the eggs will increase your ghostly cholesterol. Sucking on
the eggs will mimic the recent anguish of Democrats [n.b. Not to be confused
with poultryheist(grand theft chicken.)]

Politicians frequently gerrymander their own policies, “calculate”
or “tailor” them if you prefer, in order to compete for a particular coalition
of voters or to establish credentials for the occasion of greater ambition. By
now, the Democrat nominee, Hillary Clinton, owing to a lengthy career in
politics, including her participation in the career of her controversial
husband, has probably muddied the museum of her viewpoints by pledging support
for a sufficient number of leaky, contradictory, or even baldly conservative stances.
Swing, centrist, and left-of-center voters who vote Hillary must be trusting in
the sense that she represents, however tepidly, the inclusive space where most
Americans would probably situate themselves. We say “must be trusting” because
her campaign hasn’t done enough to define her core values, hasn’t done enough
to establish her as a likable candidate, and hasn’t done enough to defeat
allegations of dishonesty frequently recited by her polarizing opponent, Donald
Trump. The “Crooked Hillary” sticker, which Trump coined early in his battle to
win the Republican nomination, functions best when her foe doesn’t supply
verification. “Crooked Hillary” this,
he says, “Crooked Hillary” that, “Crooked
Hillary” universe. Trump also scores
points by portraying the Democrat nominee as being mired in the ineffective politics
of the past, and establishing himself as the agent for rescuing America from
its purported economic and cultural decline. In her two campaigns for president,
Hillary has somehow failed to establish herself—herself, a woman, set against more than two hundred years of male presidencies—as
the change candidate, even as Trump’s profane orientation toward women has provided
the Democrat with ample material for television commercials and reprimands
during the debates.

Yet the case for Hillary begins, finally, with the debates.
She out-pointed her opponent for all three of them, including the third contest,
during which Trump, arguably, presented himself in improved fashion. When we
say “she won”, we mean she demonstrated broad knowledge—a command—of various
issues, as opposed to Trump, who periodically seemed lost when it came to the inconvenience
of details. Often times, Trump projected annoyance or poor sportsmanship. In
the case of the second debate, the town hall setting where the candidates were
free to roam the stage, he famously loomed around Hillary, lending additional
credence to the growing legend of his gender-specific hostility. The stalking,
harrumphing, acerbic Trump radiated bullying energy, in how he tried to
dominate Clinton’s televised image by virtue of his larger body. It was then,
especially, when Hillary wouldn’t rattle, and the toughness she exhibited, the
mettle, might reassure wobbly voters of how she might comport herself on the
world stage, among the likes of Vladimir Putin, a character whose ties to this
election—and potentially to Trump himself—continue to be lightly investigated. The
amount of scrutiny heaped upon Clinton’s shadowy but otherwise innocuous email
server ought to be refocused on the alleged links between Putin and
cyber-crime, including the strongman’s reputed interest in sabotaging the
presidential contest. Trump’s own mysterious comments in calling for Russia to
hack into, or hack further into Clinton’s
emails, ought to raise the specter of collusion. If nothing else, it’s a
strange thing to have said in the first place. Of course, the Republican
candidate has numbed the American public with his flair for theatrical commentary,
and the route to defeating him won’t be accomplished through mere criticism. Trump’s
supporters have made peace with his unending capacity for indecency.

Democrats ultimately chose Hillary as the party’s
representative despite the insurgent appeal of Bernie Sanders, a candidate
whose identifiable anti-corporate message easily attracted young voters, liberals,
and independents. In denying Sanders, the party establishment really flexed its
musculature, and by “musculature”, we mean the big-donor throwback apparatus of
the democrat machine, even in a cycle when many voting blocs hungered for the
fresh territory of a political outsider. Enter Trump, who easily and angrily
vanquished a host of well-funded, flabby Republican hopefuls, many of whom denounce
him, to this day. In the course of consolidating his power, Trump battled many
additional Republican icons, including John McCain, the unlikely recipient of a
scathing Trump attack. When Trump faulted McCain for being captured by the
Vietcong—“I like people who weren’t captured,” went the quote—he unthinkingly called
into question the service of countless heroic members of the armed services.
Consider the roughly 23,000 American troops captured (or listed as missing)
during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, a five-week winter counteroffensive
launched by the retreating Germans that created a dangerous “bulge” in the
Allied lines. Trump wouldn’t have liked those 23,000 soldiers, apparently, despite
the fact that they aided in thwarting a vicious, desperate attempt by the Nazis
to prolong the war and cause even more Allied casualties. The Republican
nominee hasn’t served his country, of course. He was given a million dollars as
a young man, and has spent his life, by all accounts, shamelessly multiplying
it, and shamelessly bragging about it, as if that’s the highest single calling
for an American.

The great American, Eleanor Roosevelt.

We at Blood And Gutstein supported Bernie Sanders in the
primaries, and as Bernie did, we endorse Hillary Clinton for president. Should
she prevail on Tuesday, when the country completes its voting, we hope that she’ll
incorporate many of Bernie’s themes into her first term as president, as well
as battle the obstructionist Republican-dominated Congress, should it prevail,
too, on Tuesday, with all the vim and vigor she unleashed in the debates.
Hillary doesn’t strike us as being the perfect candidate, but she is—by far—the
best remaining candidate in the contest. If the nation elects her, then
Democrats will have broken both the race and gender barriers in presidential elections,
despite the fact that Eleanor Roosevelt was truly the first, if unelected, woman
president of the United States.

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Homely streets terminate at the windowpanes of phantom addresses. A bit of salt in the clouds. What percentage the blood from metals?

A scream, a siren, the two together before the scream alone. Purpose crossing purpose as when the purpose of haste crosses the purpose of defenselessness in the witch light of early condemnations. The confetti of isolations.

The single color where upper and lower distance cannot continue as distance. There were three stars in the evening sky. “Let us kiss three times—and all will be forgiven.”

Proximity might be painful but echo requires a neighborhood, an everyday bird climbing through mistranslation. A stripe of sky campaigns between a block of cold rooftops and the westerly hull of a warm cloud. Interior man, limited man, static.

A helicopter rattles in the rustiness of its own levity, bucking above a plain grid. The taxicab driver remembered a boxer, Ike, he could dance and he could sting, the meter nickling a fare.

In the still of the night was the same moonshine as in the still of the day. You keep phoning in sick because you’ve got a weekend immune system. The strongman of Samsung and Goliath slays several Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, before his smartphone catches fire. A detective once explained that he would place suspects into two categories: Alibi Yes and Alibi No. Given his one phone call, the Jamaican tried to explain his predicament—“I’m in de pokey, mon!”—but his friends thought he was relishing his commitment to the anime game, Pokémon Go. Eventually he was freed, since the jury couldn’t reach a verdict. (They were dread-locked.)

When Jack Kerouac wasn’t himself, you could say that he was “beat off.” Literary scholars have unearthed two more J.D. Salinger works, and will now combine them in an expanded collection, Franny, Granny, Tranny, and Zooey. There’s a hell of a medium-cooked pasta and its name is al Dente’s Inferno. Lawyers love the morality tale, “The Torts and the Heir”, but often misinterpret Fort Reform: instead of holding down the fort they advocate for cutting a fort, instead. Surely the wife of a famous psychotherapist stepped into her undergarment, her Freudian slip. Definitions: (1) She peered like a great cat, so the media lionized her (2) The Scottish and their Lyin’ Ayes!

How does Donald Trump expect Mexican farmers to deliver
avocados after he’s built the anti-Mexican immigration wall? By throwing them?
One at a time? Ostensibly, there could be little avocado-sized holes in the
wall so these super-foods could be kindly passed-through (one at a time) or of
course giant bucket-loads of the fruits could be launched into the Southwestern
United States via catapults. Yes, the Mexican workers would chop the
restraining ropes with axes and lo, the avocados would fly—into our yards, onto
our roofs, into the windows of our Drumpf-fearing children, onto our crumbling
infrastructure, into our floundering eco-systems.

Trump hopes to win the election by banking on the fact that
people won’t feel comfortable voting for the country’s first major-party female
candidate for the White House. In other words, nobody we’ve voted for (except
Geraldine Ferraro) has wielded bosoms. To be fair, though, Mike Pence has
seemed a little jiggly during this election cycle and Drumpf, famously, won’t
release his bust size. To wit, the Clinton-Kaine ticket might be the only one
that can offer gender-appropriate bosoms, busts, ribcages, breastplates, and
pectoralia. (Gary Johnson couldn’t name an international boob who he respected,
so his cleavage won’t be invited to the debates.)

Have you read Trump’s real economic program? Skip to the
part where he envisions, as did Hoover, a uniform measure of prosperity. Where
Hoover promised “a chicken in every pot,” Drumpf selects the automobile—as
opposed to the stew pot—as the homogenous object that will receive the unit of
comeuppance. His plan calls for “A Douchebag in Every Car.” Does he mean an
airbag? Don’t most cars already possess an airbag? Don’t most cars already have
a douchebag (behind the wheel)? Can you imagine GM issuing a douchebag recall?
Can you imagine young hoodlums breaking into cars, just to steal the douchebag?
The country will be Driving Drumpf.

Donald Trump wants to irrigate drivers just before they
smack their foreheads against the dashboard. This, Dear Reader, is what we call
“Meta Fur.” The next time you drink a 40 with your (moderate) Republican chums
on the stoop, tell ‘em, should they vote Hillary, the Republicans can spend
four more years clobbering her, again. She’s more of a Republican than Drumpf,
and there are laws against Democrats impersonating Republicans. Paul Ryan can
chuck impeaches at her. Paul Ryan can impeach Bill Clinton for calling himself
First Man. Adam was the First Man, he was American, and he broke breadsticks in
the Olive Garden of Eden.

Just relax, okay? Eleanor Roosevelt was the first woman to be President
of the United States, so Hillary would be second. But if we vote Drumpf in
November, then Vladimir Putin could become the first sitting Russian leader to
assume the U.S. presidency. Trump can, perhaps, buy-off Putin by offering him
several detained avocados: a super-food bribe to avoid a super-feud! Be vewwwy
vewwwy careful, Dear Voter, be vewwwy vewwwy careful.

Monday, September 5, 2016

If you want to submit an application to work at the spice
factory, you have to visit Cumin Resources, you chives turkey.

Cold weather rarely affects Andalusia, but when it does,
they call it the Brr-Brr of Seville.

The lead singer of the forgettable pop band, Duran Duran,
has announced a joint venture with an iconic home cleanser. The new product,
Simon Le Bon Ami, will be sold in the music aisle (under “American Mafia to Amish Mafia”) and the housewares aisle,
under “Remove Crud.”

Charlton Heston vomited so many times on the set of a famous
Roman-era film, the production was almost renamed Ben-Hurl.

If you sit on your buttix [sic] all day long and write
several novels with critical reception of “fluffy”, you too can have Buns of
(Danielle) Steel.

“Intertextuality. Yeah we had that in the joint. When you
longed to have coitus with a fictional character—that was a case of
intertextuality. I was very comfortable with my intertextuality.”

“Hey Bro. Did the other Bros steal all the pasta from the
sorority house?” “Yeah Bro.” “So they carried out the Penne Raid?” “It was such
a Penne Raid!” “Cool Bro.” “You know it Bro.”

Von Bismarck has been kidnapped! It’s grand theft Otto!

Let’s say the most haughty rooster is the cock of the walk,
then it follows that the most haughty stir fry chef is the cook of the wok.

Fond of removing earwax at every opportunity, the former
Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, was known among colleagues as Q-Tip O’Neill,
as he often wielded the gavel and the cotton swabs with equal dedication.

You’ve had the sensation that you’ve seen the same
witchcraft before, so it’s likely that you experienced Déjà Voo Doo. On the
other hand, if you think you’ve simply seen the same old crap before, it’s
probably just Déjà vu Doo Doo.

Sunday, August 14, 2016

An arm thrown around defunct machinery. The prevalence of
sorrow, sorrow as common ambience. What stoppages a grid offers, what
off-ramps. The pale, sifted orange of afternoon windows. The pale, sifted
orange of careful thinking. The same clouds for two weeks. It needs to rain,
and it rains, dotty fabric, the rain. Not enough to discredit the integrity of
structures, okay okay. A vehicle cannot pass-through another vehicle. A
towering support isn’t two, but one. The skin of obedience as opposed to the
metastasis of anger. How many ways to beg, “No.” An insinuation of relief
despite the full moon of a lamppost aglittering the sidewalk purified by a
victim, just leaking blood. And the footsteps, the babble of footsteps in too
many directions, to be understood. . . .

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

You can’t imagine the inherent challenges in the new video
game, World of Wharf Rat. First, there’s Henry Winkler, who promises you great
wealth, but ends up thieving your life savings as part of a Fonzie Scheme. You
think back in time, as avatar wharf rat, to a love affair in a British
territory, when your partner Left You at the Gibraltar, a figurative Brexit.
Penniless (ahem) and loveless (ahem) and needing a tailor (a hem) you slumber
on the docks with your best friend, Steve E. Dore, who also joins you in scrapping
for meals. The two of you once found some pretty good Maxi Pad Thai, but you
don’t limit yourselves to incontinental cuisine. “Mein krampf,” you think, “in
mein rumpf, mein trampf stampf of mein Donald Drumpf.” Now you can send emails
from the very gasser of your dyspeptic condition—sent from my iBS, reads the
automated message.

Day by day in World of Wharf Rat you encounter such shallow,
insincere people—you wish each would undergo a glib-otomy. You decide to
emulate William Faulkner’s first published short story, and in your version, “Afros
for Emily”, a bunch of bushy-haircut dudes reflect upon a southern spinster.
Another story comes to mind, “Arose for Homily”, a morality tale about
attending church. In your stories, the characters amass lavish lifestyles, and as a generous writer who properly endows your peeps with great wealth, you also oversee the transmission of prickly amorous
diseases: these folks are living in The Clap of Luxury. Walking up and down the
wharves, you discover a single literary agency—Bald Egalitarian & Assoc.—but
its window (boarded) and its signage (toi let) resigns you to pondering
your fate afresh. Henry Winkler avatar beckons, Steve E. Dore avatar beckons,
Emily avatar of “Afros for Emily” beckons.

“El El,” says a Spanish-speaking avatar, referring to the
above-ground subway gusting into place. You may guide the avatar wharf rat in
whichever direction you please, pilgrim—El El, barquentines, foodstuffs, Fonzie
Schemes, Brexit—but in reality, you’re guiding avatar every last one of us, and
the next joystick maneuver matters.

Thanks to my colleagues for bonding together as Team Duck. Seven baby mallidz (whose mother is thought to have perished) were transported to a nature preserve where they will develop oil glands and become the best drakes and hens they can be. We were proud to give back to the duck community!

Monday, June 20, 2016

This hat belonged to my older brother, David, who passed
away in 1990. Anybody who knew David knew his obsessions with Cleveland sports.
A native of Cleveland, like me, he followed the Browns, the Indians, and the
Cavaliers. He bet on them (to win) and suffered (both emotionally and
financially!) when they inevitably faltered. David witnessed some crucial near
misses, such as the Browns losing in agonizing fashion to the Raiders during the
1980-81 NFL playoffs, not to mention numerous failures versus the Broncos in
ensuing years. He didn’t live to witness the Indians dropping a ninth inning
lead versus the Marlins in Game Seven of the 1997 World Series, losing the game
(and the Series) in the bottom of the 11th inning. Basketball fans,
of course, know the LeBron James saga. LeBron carried the Cavs to the 2007 NBA
Finals, only to suffer a sweep at the hands of the Spurs, and then, seeking a
ring, “took his talents to South Beach”, where he won two rings in four trips
to the Finals with the Heat. When he returned to Cleveland, but lost in the NBA Finals to the
free-shooting Warriors last year, it seemed as if Cleveland sports might
continue to feature some genuinely great players without actually achieving the
greatness last demonstrated by Jim Brown and the rest of his Cleveland teammates
in 1964, when the Browns upended the heavily favored Colts to clinch the NFL
Championship. With the Cavaliers down three games to one in the 2016 Finals, before completing a shock series
comeback, still another Cleveland team appeared to have squandered another chance
at a title. Yet, with the score tied 89-89 late in the fourth quarter of Game
Seven, the Cavs played spectacular team defense, punctuated by LeBron’s
muscular, athletic block of a sure Andre Iguodala layup, and produced four
points—the final cushion—via Kyrie Irving’s three point shot and one-of-two
free throw shooting from LeBron, who’d been injured before going to the line. James’s
performance in the series, especially on the road at Golden State for Game Seven, should go down as one of the
great performances throughout the history of all North American sports, perhaps
Top 10 or Top 5. For Cleveland fans, it was probably The Greatest Performance of All Time,
and today, I enjoyed wearing my brother’s hat during walks through Baltimore
and Washington. It’s too bad David didn’t live to witness the end of the ‘championship
drought’, but it gave me great comfort to remember my brother’s devotion to
Cleveland teams, by wearing the only possession of his that I retained. Today,
I realized why I’d kept it after all these years.

Sunday, June 5, 2016

By saying “I’m sleeping with someone”, the fellow means he’s
sleeping with the fragrance of her hair at repose, the forward jut of her
hip-bones, the restlessness of her feet kicking the tympanic surface of the
mattress. He’s sleeping with the contours of her embryonic familiarity.

The thundering noise from above is, in fact, thunder, if we
define thunder with the generous elasticity that thunder generates, sequentially. A
hawk lingers on an arterial wire, it was built in a rainstorm, the hawk’s
plumage is rainfall, its mid-air colors and runoff.

A glancing moment, as when a boxer must claw the danger, given
his struggle for viability within the emergency of his own footing. His
opposite smites the blundering footage underneath his wobbly mentality, an idea
that implies the spark of a knuckle upon the recalcitrant chin.

Your child years, your work years, your aged years. What a
catastrophe—to need—to take action, the way bells and horns regulate the sluggish
ambulation of conveyances bound for a hub, a destination-hub, the afternoon
never able to clear or clarify its ambiguities.

Everything perishes: the belly of a mural tagged by tagger, afternoon
darkening, downhill acceleration, even perishing perishes. What might happen—experts
should theorize—when all perishing perishes: abrupt stop? but what of “stop”, seeing
as it represents a perishable state?

Director’s note: This little critter hopped onto my sandal
and gazed pacifically into my eyes. (I wish I’d had the camera recording when that happened!) In response, I followed
the critter—probably a small rat, but maybe a big, blue mouse—for a few seconds
as it led me down the sidewalk. It was a kindly little soul, seemingly unfazed
by a person, or perhaps not yet schooled in the predatory ways of the big city.
Whatever the case, I continued onward in a charmed way, after this brief
encounter. (22 seconds, Rated C for depiction of Critter.)

Friday, May 20, 2016

Seen from another angle as when an area—station, square,
market—seen on a Sunday. Little made from heavy (stone) slab anymore.
Cream-colored stone: whole cities. A child’s fascination with a pigeon. As for excess—what
the wind can’t carry into underbrush and embankments will perish in half-lives.
What other kinds of lives does excess (excessive material) lead? What kind of half-lives
do we lead? The love more protest than recognition. Uncorrected, the expression
will calcify. Uncorrected, the expression will calcify into a demonstration of thistle-thorn
dismay. The amount of material aloft. Being first or being best? “I want to
imagine your face when you think of me but I can’t.” By “imagine your face” I
mean in shadow, in the shadow of your shiny hair, your expression itself a
shadow. “The emporium of youth” versus “the emporium of adulthood.” I mean,
nature ramifies in order to survive. Never mind the number of birds, the number
of raptors, the northern goshawk. In one corner of a cemetery, the headstones
under water. The difference between “idling” and “waiting”. Meanwhile, “il y
a du monde dans la village.” To get cosmopolitan (to get global) get
irresponsible. Wave hands in a fluttering, dilly manner. What cold seeks to
occupy as opposed to what seeks to occupy cold. Why forage alone if one must
forage. (That way, in a pair, two people could forage a bond.) The paucity of
arrivals, the paucity of slack arrivals, the inner paucity, the slack. Imagine
lightning—staying around—like trees. All the lightning on the hillside, all the
trees on the hillside. The arboreal properties of lightning, the lightning full
of sap, quite flammable. Remember: the symmetrical nature of most pain. If
Person A will ail at Point X then Person B will ail at Point Y. Loneliness aggrandizes. The cycle of isolation,
governed by a spray of tall buildings, or the sliding scale of sunlight, or the
balloting of voices in airshafts and alleys. “Who is bright” and “Who is warm.”
The units of earth that the elements rearrange—rust, rusty coloring, what gnaws
into the animal, our porticos of vulnerable awareness.

Biographical information on leader: J.C. Davis came to some renown as a soloist in, and musical director of the James Brown Band round about the late 1950s and early 1960s. He recorded a smattering of songs as leader roughly during the same time period with “The Splib, Part 1” (b/w “The Splib, Part 2”) being one of his first committed to vinyl. He may have drifted out of music by the 1970s, but not before he toured with the likes of Etta James, Jackie Wilson, and Little Willie John. Some photographic evidence available online suggests that J.C. Davis attended James Brown’s funeral in 2006. Davis tears the building down with “The Splib, Part 1”, which concludes with a voice (Davis himself?) encouraging the listener to flip the record for further splib, oh yeah!

25 word review: Screaming as applied to uninhibited gyration, it celebrates the moments before pinnacle, the clinching argument, one imagines whole halls in motion, the walls themselves dancing.

Biographical information on leader: We know very little about Frank De Rosa, who seems to have recorded just these two songs. “Big Guitar” achieved some local notoriety, prompting Dot to pick up the record for national distribution. De Rosa’s version (of “Big Guitar”) failed to achieve widespread success, but a cover by the Owen Bradley Quartet fared much better. While De Rosa may have played with other musicians, including Ella Fitzgerald, scant information exists for this wailing saxophone player, who really hits the bell on “Irish Rock.”

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

The G.O.P. can bellyache all it wants about presumptive
nominee Donald Drumpf, but in fielding 17 candidates at the onset of the presidential
season—with many treading into the primaries—the party allowed a subset of voters
(25%? 30%?) to establish the outsider, Drumpf, as the front-runner, while
compelling the remainder of the candidates, most of them milquetoast insiders, to
divvy-up the leftover ballots.

When the field narrowed to three—Drumpf, Cruz, Kasich—this blogger
(a lifelong Democrat) cheered for John Kasich, who, although a bit bloated,
nevertheless represented the nearly-extinct moderate wing of the Republican
party, and although this blogger would prefer the eventual Democrat nominee to
him, it might not be the end of rational civilization were he to assume the presidency,
i.e. the Oaf of Orifice.

Drumpf vanquished his rivals, however, through his in-depth
knowledge of “schlong” and “schlonging techniques”, which involve the provision
of “schlong”, professional development of “schlong”, electoral “schlong”, and
numerous pontifications on “the schlonged”—how “schlong in America”, if
properly wielded, can topple an establishment, leading a voter to declaim on “sudden,
irrevocable schlong.”

In an effort to gain expertise on bridge closures, i.e.,
ways of preventing Democrat commuters from traveling to the polls in November,
Drumpf has installed the massive object, Chris Christie, as chairman of his Transition Team, and Christie, equally effective, viz. (1) Drumpf’s Call to
Service, and (2) at The Buffet, ought to demonstrate expertise in showing the presumptive nominee just how
to narrow lanes and pinch-off circulation.

Lately, Republican voters seem fond of presenting the
country with “Captains of Industry” as their champions, including Willard “Mitt”
Romney from the previous cycle, but just to be sure, we’re not talking about “Captains”
who have built factories, railroads, automobiles, or power plants from scratch,
no, we’re talking about those “Captains” who were handed vast wealth, and didn’t
screw up at multiplication.

It says Drumpf on an airplane, it says Drumpf on a
skyscraper, it says Drumpf on a helicopter, it says Drumpf on a casino, and it
says Drumpf on TV, in fact, when you power-up your television set, it burps out
Drumpf for reasons scientists are currently at a loss to explain, and often
times, now, when a boxer or MMA fighter receives a Mexican liver punch, he or
she also says Drumpf, before collapsing in agony.

Google Translate detects German when you enter Drumpf, and
it translates Drumpf as flopper whopper, he who impersonates a publicist, incomplete
suppression of epigastric crisis, corporate culture enthusiast, avant garde
gerbil actions, selective memory failure, and “the epicenter of the fart”, but
the thing is, that’s a single word, Drumpf, in German, and that’s what it means—all
that jazz!

You’d think the climate would come up roses for us
Democrats, but think again, with our second-chance presumptive nominee, Hillary
Clinton, failing to quell the impressive insurgency from plain-talking Bernie
Sanders, a candidate for whom this blogger voted, mostly because Bernie is
saying the kinds of things that nobody else—not shrill Hillary and certainly
not billionaire-class Drumpf—has the guts to say.

It’s not just Hillary Clinton, LLC that opposes Drumpf, but formidable
kababs of the Republican establishment who might challenge him as part of a third
party effort to rescue their burglarized party, yet either way, Drumpf won’t be
vanquished by reciting from a list of offenses, no, he’s far too crafty for
something weak like that, plus many Drumpf supporters, the silent Drumpfistas,
remain hidden from pollsters and don’t give a rat’s ass about Paul Ryan or “wee
government.”

Hillary (and Bill, too) will be the targets of much muckraking
as Drumpf attempts to wrest the reins of government, and this could mitigate
Hillary’s effectiveness, but more importantly, Hillary will have to campaign in
a way that she hasn’t campaigned before: she’ll have to inspire voters by
presenting a clear, compelling vision of her presidency, yet even if she
accomplishes this unlikely feat, unfortunately, the answer to “U.S.A. to Elect
Donald Drumpf?” may still be, sadly, yes.

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

After Swansea City finished eighth in the Premier League
last season, hauling-in a club record 56 points, the team and its supporters
may have begun to dream of “more”, with “more” possibly equating to European
football—a finish that would qualify the Swans for a lucrative continental
competition. The 2015-16 campaign began brightly enough, with the sharp, young
manager, Garry Monk, presiding over eight points from the first four matches,
including a 2-2 draw away to defending champions Chelsea and a 2-1 triumph over
Manchester United at the Liberty Stadium, the third straight defeat of the
legendary club. But a considerable dip in form, punctuated by a listless home
drubbing at the boots of eventual champions, Leicester City, prompted the brass—a
bit hastily, perhaps, a bit hysterically—to sack Monk in December and install
Swansea legend, Alan Curtis, as caretaker manager, a role he’d undertaken in
2004. Suddenly, the greatest story in sports, a club that had come within a
game of its extinction, but through essential community involvement climbed all
the way into the Premier League, appeared jeopardized. Even as the Swans
slipped into the relegation zone for a short stretch, the steely legend,
Curtis, steadied the players, and even substituted briefly for Monk’s eventual
replacement, the reputable Francesco Guidolin, an Italian manager who
ultimately guided the Swans to safety, including a memorable 4-1 late-season
romp at West Ham, a side actually chasing European glory in its final fixtures.

Player of the year, Gylfi Sigurðsson

Nobody enjoyed Monk’s dismissal, especially since the former
Swans defensive stalwart and captain had earnestly ushered the club to safety
after Michael Laudrup had gotten the sack, himself, during the 2013-14 season.
The following campaign—that of 56 points and the eighth place finish—featured
league doubles (sweeps) over Manchester United and Arsenal, as well as no
extended periods of rot. Thus, who would’ve expected to encounter miserable ten-man
Swansea, at home versus relegation rivals Sunderland in January, chasing the
game around, immersed in a precarious 4-2 defeat? During the match, defender
Kyle Naughton had been harshly sent off owing to a challenge (later declared
fair) on a Sunderland player, and shockingly, a game the Swans had earmarked—to
bear points—had horribly slipped away. Out of nowhere, then, the Swansea City
board improbably produced Guidolin, a manager who captain, Ash Williams, had to
Google. After relieving Garry Monk of his duties, Swansea chairman Huw Jenkins
had jetted to South America, hoping to entice the fiery El Loco, Marcelo Bielsa,
to pace the sidelines, but instead, the sixty year-old Italian, Guidolin, who’d
impressively managed a string of smaller clubs in Serie A, assumed sideline
duties in time for Swansea to defeat Everton, the first such outcome against
the Toffees in a league match. Guidolin, an avid bicycle rider who envied the
prospects of riding along the Welsh coastline, developed a lung infection
before facing Arsenal away, an illness that required prolonged hospitalization.

Andre Ayew became
the club’s leader goal-scorer

At Arsenal, most prominently, the
former Swans forward and Wales international, Alan Curtis, oversaw the club as
caretaker, and the players responded, producing a somewhat lucky but undeniably
vital 2-1 conquest at The Emirates. A few weeks later, after presiding over an
important comeback draw, 2-2, at Stoke, Guidolin would lead the Swans to the
club’s first ever league victory over Chelsea, 1-0, punctuated by a goal from
Iceland international, Gylfi Sigurðsson, the highly acclaimed player of the
year, who generated the club’s most crucial finishes. Andre Ayew, the first-year
international from Ghana, would regain his early season form, starring in
late-season defeats of Liverpool and West Ham, along with a 1-1 draw versus
Manchester City on the final day, to help the club reach 12th in the table at
47 points. Yet the defeat of West Ham, 4-1, in London, might provide Swansea
City supporters with the most incisive vision of the future, by virtue of its
youthful starting lineup, showcasing the center-backs Jordi Amat and Fede
Fernandez, left-back Stephen Kingsley, winger Modou Barrow, and midfielder
Leroy Fer, on loan from Queens Park Rangers. Wayne Routledge found the net,
Ayew found the net, Ki Sung-yeung found the net, and the much maligned (but dutiful)
Bafetimbi Gomis (the self-proclaimed “Black Panther”) ended his goal-scoring
drought. The Swans fielded players from Poland, England, Argentina, Catalonia,
Scotland, the Netherlands, South Korea, Gambia, Spain, Ghana, and France, but
the “Tower of Babel” implications failed to materialize as this fleet
international lineup flew around the pitch in harmony. Notably, Jack Cork wore
the armband, as captain Ash Williams took a well-deserved breather. Ayew would
eventually close the season as Swansea’s top scorer, netting 12 important goals.

The D.C. Jacks
celebrate with the ritual Penderyn toast

As a founding member of the D.C. Jacks, this blogger toasted
Swansea City’s achievement of reaching safety (a 3-1 defeat of Liverpool) by hoisting
a glass of Welsh single malt, Penderyn, in the company of other founding
members of the D.C. Jacks. We realize that uncertainty lies ahead for the
Swans. Even as several Swansea players prepare to participate in the Euro 2016
competition, the club will be weighing offers for some of its stars,
considering swoops for other players, and conceiving of its tactics for the 2016-17
Prem. Might we witness the return of Wilfried Bony, beloved striker from Cote
d’Ivoire, now languishing on Manchester City? Will the “Welsh Pirlo” Joe Allen,
now a Liverpool standout, return to South Wales, as has been rumored? Will the
American investment group that owns the Memphis Grizzlies of the NBA and D.C.
United of MLS, purchase a controlling interest in Swansea, thus arriving with a
substantial cash infusion? Noting that the great new champions, Leicester City,
triumphed unexpectedly with a variety of unconventional strategies and players,
but nevertheless with conventional international billionaire ownership, undoubtedly
the Swansea board may decide that it needs to trade the satisfaction of being a
community-owned enterprise for the added security of greater resources. We’re
sure that’s not an easy decision to make. The community and the club have
fought hard to ensure a sixth-straight season at the top, a feat that has
obviously emerged from great competence and great decency. Next year, the
somewhat severe but undeniably generous Francesco Guidolin—with Curtis at his
side—will lead Swansea City in the greatest professional sports league in the
world. To that, we say, Up the Swans!

APPEARANCES WITH HETERODYNE IMPROVISATIONAL MUSIC PROJECT

I have appeared several times (as “Words”) with the Heterodyne improvisational music project, which is led by Maria Shesiuk and Ted Zook. Other performers have included Sarah Hughes, Leah Gage, Doug Kallmeyer, Bob Boilen, Sam Lohman, Amanda Huron, and Patrick Whitehead. Here are three free sample recordings, each about 30 minutes long, available on Soundcloud: